You belong somewhere you feel free.: Another Blissful Weekend

The Bafana Bafanas were reunited with our long lost friends on Friday night when the Springboks returned from adventure week. Their stories about the Garden Route (which we’ll be on this coming week) were awesome, and they were just as excited to hear our stories about service week. To celebrate the crazy adventures and humbling experiences, a large majority of us decided to road trip to Stellenbosch—about an hour from Cape Town—for a night.

I left on Saturday morning with a bus full of hostel-bound friends. We eventually made it to the Stumble Inn and made ourselves comfortable in a questionable but cozy cottage made up of bunk beds and creaky floorboards. After stowing our backpacks away, Korbas and Lanz (Ish’s wingmen) took twenty of us to Spier, where we ate lunch at the most adorable deli and visited some cheetahs while we waited on our food. We could have gone into the cages to pet them, but I was running the group on a tight schedule. Maybe next time!

Tour guide Tina/Navigator Nancy

Eight Restaurant

We left at one o’clock (right on schedule, I might add!) to head toward the Waterford Winery where we had a reservation for a wine and chocolate tasting—key word: chocolate. Perhaps now you understand why I refused to be late! Korbas and Lanz apparently had the “wrong address” which resulted in us "exploring" (NOT getting lost in) Stellenbosch wine country. I had to cancel our Waterford reservation, but the kind people at Bilton Winery took us under their wings and supplied us with even more wine and chocolate than we would have received at Waterford. My uptight, agenda-oriented self is finally starting to appreciate the impromptu changes that are sometimes unavoidable. We ended up having a ball as we learned about the history of the winery, listened to stories about the pirate who stole barrels of French wine, and took turns sharing glasses and trading chocolates.

Emily DeJarnett (UGA)

Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz

Love these girls!

The crew {6.4.11}

Once we had checked the Spier cheetahs and the wine tasting off the Stellenbosch to-do list, Korbas and Lanz dropped us off downtown to let us shop and wander as we pleased. Imagine Athens, Georgia in the middle of Napa Valley—that’s exactly what Stellenbosch is like. We didn’t visit the famous Stellenbosch University as I had hoped, but we didn’t need the campus to find the students. The majority of Saturday night was spent at Bohemia, a pizza place/bar, with lots of Stellenbosch students who are just about to start their final exams. AnnaBeth managed to meet a fraternity president—the presidents get paid here, by the way!—who acted as our downtown tour guide for the rest of the night. He and Marten, an adventure guide from Addo, took the Global L.E.A.D. students “pub crawling” (AKA: bar hopping) to make sure that we had a great time in their beloved college town. CHECK! Everyone had a blast.

Bohemia

Catwalk

Some people stayed out entirely too late with Ish, but I made it to bed by 2 A.M. because I had a 5 A.M. wakeup call waiting on me. Emily DeJarnett, Emily Gregory, and I decided to go three-deep in the front room of the house, and as we drifted off to sleep our pillow talk sounded something like this:

“Y’all, we’re in South Africa. In a hostel. By ourselves.”
“We are so old!”
“We are so lucky.”

Lucky indeed. I couldn’t even complain about barely getting three hours of sleep when Ish drove nine of us home before sunrise this morning (the rest of the gang slept in and rode the charter bus home later in the afternoon) because I had too much excitement around me. The cheetahs, the chocolate, the pizza, and the dancing most certainly made for a fun trip to Stellenbosh, but the highlight of the weekend was yet to come: later that day I would be jumping way outside of my comfort zone and SKYDIVING over Cape Town, South Africa. HOLY UNBELIEVABLE EXPERIENCE!

That’s right—the girl who cried on a ferris wheel when she was a senior in high school JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE at an altitude of 9,000 feet today. Mrs. Gina Bryant (my high school drama director) once wrote a letter to me that ended with “Never doubt yourself.” I happened to re-read that note before I left for Cape Town, and I must credit her and thank my friend, Ty Frix, for encouraging me to be bold and to make the most of everything life offers.

Cumming Fair 2008

She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus, and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Cape Town
Loves elephants and her single life too
And she's FREE, FREE FALLIN'

Most people know that I’m fairly sentimental with my thoughts and intentional with my actions, which is why I chose to wear my Team Veazy shirt today. Chance Veazy, a rising junior on the UGA baseball team, was paralyzed in a scooter accident in the fall of 2009 when we were freshmen. One of his teammates, Jonathan Taylor, was paralyzed this past spring in an outfield collision. Although I am not particularly close to either of these young men, my heart breaks for them. I hate the fact that they will probably never be able to do something as crazy and revitalizing as skydiving. So, I faced my fear and jumped in honor of them. I took advantage of the opportunity offered to me and my ability to do it—and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.